"We wrote a lot of the songs when we were touring in the Northern Territory and WA. It's amazing up there, it feels foreign but quintessentially Australian at the same time. A thread running through some of the songs was that sense of distance and isolation we felt up there."
Nick O'Mara is explaining the creative process that went in to Amarillo's first full-length release Eyes Still Fixed. He and Jac Tonks worked closely with producer and engineer Shane O'Mara to create their lush folk-pop colouring.
"Recording to me is about capturing a moment that happened. My favourite songs are like that. Listen to The Stones play Gimme Shelter live - they can't even play that song again. That event happened once, only once, the day they recorded it. Lightening in a bottle." Maybe it was knowing they only had one shot to capture a particular essence that drove their almost telepathic connection when it came to the sounds and flavours they wanted threaded throughout their tracks. "Driving in to record the title track, I said to Jac, 'I want that Ry Cooder Sister Morphine sound,'" explains O'Mara. "[I was] setting up my gear and Shane said, 'Go for that Cooder sound on Sister Morphine.' [The were] many moments like that. Simpatico."
